Feature Label — Orri Henrisson

Orri’s Debut

Orri Hen­ris­son is based out of Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia where its gar­ments are proudly made. Behind the label is designer, Henry Ng, who started out in the area of graphic design, before begin­ning work on his own label. He started his own line as an out­let for cre­ativ­ity and to fill a void in the mar­ket.  The label’s debut col­lec­tion is titled, “King Of Car­rot Flow­ers”, ref­er­enc­ing “Neu­tral Milk Hotel’s song of the same title.”  “It toys with the idea of whim, quirk­i­ness and child­hood rever­ies and these are pre­sented through the vibrant colours, the con­trast sil­hou­ettes, and the capri­cious graphics.”

Q & A

How did you get inter­ested in fashion?

I think I have always had a thing for fash­ion. My mum used to work as a seam­stress when I was a kid and although I was never inter­ested in what she did, I was curious.

Grow­ing up, I also had a thing for clothes. I had some pretty awful things which, I def­i­nitely would not wear now, but back then, it was a dif­fer­ent story.

What is your fash­ion background?

I am actu­ally from a Mul­ti­me­dia /​ Graphic Design back­ground and have mostly picked up knowl­edge along the way since I started the label. A friend of mine does my pat­terns and she has absolutely played an impor­tant part in giv­ing me ideas on fab­ri­ca­tions, sil­hou­ette, con­tacts etc.

Per­son­ally, what are your own shop­ping habits?

In the past year or so, I have started buy­ing most of my clothes and shoes online.  Mel­bourne has been praised as the fash­ion cap­i­tal of Aus­tralia, but it is also a tiny city and have lim­ited shop­ping avenues. Despite the fash­ion city tag, I per­son­ally find that the fash­ion sense here tend to steer towards look­ing smart, chic, and styl­ish, rather than hav­ing an adven­tur­ous sense. It is all about black, black and black. Black is very flat­ter­ing and chic but it also allows peo­ple to be lazy.

Some of the shops which I used to love have shifted their direc­tion to more main­stream street-​​wear in order to stay in busi­ness and that kind of frus­trates me. There are still great shops like Alice Euphemia, but sadly, not enough to sus­tain my need of quirky and fan­ci­ful taste.

What design­ers do you like?

Eric LeBon, Hen­rik Vib­skov, Mate­r­ial Boy, Ground Zero, Mjolk, Aitor Throup

How did your own line come about? Was there any hes­i­ta­tion to have it self-​​titled?

The label got started, cos I was just bored and frus­trated of not being able to find any­thing here. I also wanted to do some­thing cre­ative, some­thing chal­leng­ing, some­thing I can look back at 20 years from now and be con­tented even if it fails.

Orri Hen­ris­son is actu­ally the name of a dog I once had. Inter­est­ingly a few peo­ple have assumed that it is my name, which is great cos I think it def­i­nitely has more of a punch than mine!

What is the pro­duc­tion process from idea to fin­ished product?

I gen­er­ally have a clear idea of what I think the end prod­uct might look like. I work with sketches, colours and details and con­sult my pat­tern maker. Some­times what I think might work sim­ply does not. For exam­ple, the pleated tee in this cur­rent col­lec­tion was a night­mare and I nearly gave up on it. But after sev­eral sam­ples and work­ing with the right man­u­fac­turer, we man­aged to get it to look (and sit) right!

What inspired this collection?

3 words. Neu­tral Milk Hotel.

Any obsta­cles in get­ting your first col­lec­tion out?

Try­ing to pitch the label to shops. It is prob­a­bly the side of run­ning a label that I do not enjoy. I was chas­ing up emails and phone calls with shops and really hated it. No one really wants to enter­tain you if they have never heard of you which makes it hard to con­tinue with pro­duc­tion, because no man­u­fac­tur­ers want to pro­duce if you are only mak­ing so few gar­ments. Try­ing to work with the right peo­ple is also another issue. You really need to work with peo­ple who can con­vey your ideas and who are pro­fes­sional with what they do. Get­ting this first col­lec­tion out has def­i­nitely taught me a few lessons about the trade.

Name a celebrity you would love to dress; name a celebrity you would close your door on.

Hot Chip. I know there is 5 of them but I think the fact that they come in dif­fer­ent sizes, style and per­son­al­i­ties absolutely suit what my design is all about. I am sure there are heaps of celebri­ties I would close my door on.

In five adjec­tives, describe your collection.

Quirky, play­ful, fes­tive, whim­si­cal, frivolous.

Any­thing else you would like to add?

If you are blonde, pasty, and skinny and can work a pose, con­tact me.

Pic­tures from Orri Hen­ris­son